“Pardon, sir,” call’d the burly wheelwright who had jostled to the front rank. “The old man did come for the cart, but in fixen one spoke, I broken another. Wait he does, and drink. The wheel, when iss finished, the old man iss not there.”
The Colonel shrugg’d and again address’d Blossom Gill. “Confess, you toss-pot!”
The old man lolled against me as if requiring sleep, and I was reminded of a beast peculiar to this continent and call’d The Oppussum, which, when surrounded by huntsmen, feigns death, tho’ whether through fright or cunning I do not know.
“Sir,” Warwick Lowther politely interposed. “Note the bruise upon the old man’s forehead. So often did the two of them come to blows, I fear’d it would end thus in tragedy. And note the stripes of wax upon his wig. No doubt these were acquired when he bent forward against the frame of wicks, while thrusting his nephew’s head into the kettle.”
“Quite correct,” the Colonel replied, pleased. “I was about to announce the same conclusion. What do you say to that, sot?”
My own thought was this evidence was far from conclusive, since Blossom work’d often dipping candles, and wax upon his wig would have been more suspicious by its absence.
“I shay you’ll shwing along ’o us, Warwick Lowther,” the old man gurgled angrily, his grog blossoms lighting up like coals in a high wind. “You begging sho meek, please we let you go free to the wilderness and you’ll never tell nor do us harm!”
Blossom Gill’s mind seem’d fix’d on something that had been troubling him prior to the murder, for he raved on: “Ash this shilversmith where he got his silver, shir! I tell you, and a roof over hish head. My nephew takes him in to melt and rework and sell the silver we have acquired, yesh, acquired, hah! But we do not trust this little man, and my nephew ashts him to accompany him through the window of the Reverend Dr. Mather, to acquire silver, and to fit his little neck in the noose so that Warwick Lowther dare not inform!”
As Blossom sagg’d against me, I wonder’d that his tongue had grown so quickly nimble for one so deeply sotted, and he gasp’d thinly: “I–I wanted no part of thish. From the firsht, I had no part in it, and I would have gone to the authorities, but my nephew would have kill’d me. He shouted at thish little silversmith, ‘I already own you, body and soul.’ And Lowther finally said he would go with him. Tho’ I warn’d against it, to night is the night the window was to be forsh’d. But to-day my nephew ish murder’d!”
“If these men were the silver thieves,” Warwick Lowther shouted clearly above the tumult, “I knew nothing of it.”
“So your silver appearsh like shwallows from the mud, hah?” Blossom Gill challenged. “You dare not unlock the shtrong-box and show them Mr. Samuel Sewall’s silver plate, much of it not yet melted into lumpsh, hah?”
With his face red with anger beneath his white wig, the little silversmith drew a brass key from his waistcoat and march’d to the strong-box, which was of old oak, bound with much iron. He pointed a white finger at Blossom, saying: “Now give up your key, old fox!”
I saw the strong box wore three locks, and by the time Blossom had dug his key from his small-clothes, Warwick Lowther had unlock’d his. Blossom’s key was a clumsy, single-notched one and took much twisting before it would open its lock. The candlemaker’s key could not be discover’d in his pockets, and I consider’d offering to pick his lock, but one’s a fool who cannot conceal such wisdom. I held my peace and join’d them in searching the corpse. About its neck was a loop of string, which, being torn from its sheen of wax and drawn out, reveal’d the third key.
When the lid of the strong-box was raised, we found only a bag of foreign coins of small worth, a new silver spoon that had split from too much hammering, and some ancient account books. The old man look’d about wildly.
“Now you see he lies,” Warwick Lowther said. “Ask the boy if Blossom is not lying so that my neck be stretch’d for murder instead of his own.”
Dennis O’Leary, turning pale, mumbled he did not know; “I have not work’d here long.”
“A blind boy!” Blossom Gill spat. “Not shuprising. Likely he help’d such a little man drown my nephew.”
“Hang them all,” a wag shouted. “That way they’ll be equally assured of justice.”
“Hold,” cried a hand-rubbing tavern keeper of long and dripping nose, who had been probing about the dead man. “Colonel, Your Grace, all is resolved. See how the blow bloodied the back of the head rather than the top, as if the murderer could strike no higher. Therefore he was a little man. And only one of these three is short.”
“Do not look so concern’d for your widow, silversmith,” a wag shouted. “She can sell a child each year.”
At this, I look’d up, and was not pleased to see on the staircase a whole row of little Lowthers, their faces aghast and flush’d red as their flaming red hair.
The Colonel, too, look’d displeased by this deduction of the tavern keeper, perchance having already determined Blossom Gill to be the murderer. And I was irritated by the tavern keeper’s reasoning, which was weak, if not false, and resolved to confute it.
“I am puzzled, sir,” I interceded loudly. “Would not a man bent over the kettle, dipping candle wicks, present the back his head to attack from behind, no matter the assailant be a dwarf or a giant?”
“Exactly what I had decided,” the Colonel declared. “There can be no doubt the murderer was this old house-pad. For a large, strong man was required to lift the candlemaker into his kettle.”
This I doubted, the mouth of the kettle being no higher than a man’s waist, so that the victim need only be push’d, rather than lifted. But I held my peace, for I was considering the more important matter of the young Lowthers’ red hair. Their mother’s hair was dark brown. Since I had never seen the silversmith without his wig, and since he was closely shaven and nearly hairless upon the wrists, I had never thought of him possessing hair, much less of it having colour. Yet, unless Mrs. Lowther had deceived him seven times at yearly intervals, I now suspected his hair was as red as Dennis O’Leary’s.
So many contradictory deductions having confused the mob, and having shortened the tempers of some, they began to shout in unison: “Throw them in the millpond. All three. Let the pond decide their guilt.”
Truly, a mob is a monster, with many heads and no brains.
“Silence!” the Colonel shouted, a sudden perspiration gleaming on his brow. “We are not examining witches. This admitted thief and murderer shall be speedily arraigned before the magistrates.” And he seized the old man’s elbow.
But Blossom Gill stood fast, tho’ swaying, and cried at the mob: “I am innocent as a babe! ’Tis thish Rhode Island receiver of stolen property has murder’d my nephew.”
The Colonel dragg’d Blossom forward a step, but the mob would not open to let them pass. They preferr’d a Massachusetts thief to any foreigner from Rhode Island. But chiefly they desired a raree show, and a cluster of bawling ropewalkmen began to shout: “String up all three for silver thievery. We must go back to work. Let the murderer be discover’d and judged in the next world.”
Colonel Clinton stood gaping like a fish, uncertain whether to bluster or retreat. The mob, which in a sense had been his creature at the beginning, was his no longer. Having sown wind, he was reaping whirlwind,
Dennis too was dragg’d into the midst of them, pale and protesting. And I guess’d they would not listen, tho’ they must know full well that an apprentice is helpless to prevent an ill-doing to his master, and dare not blab. His master’s word would be taken over his, and revenge against his master might seal an apprentice’s lips forever.